Broadband ISP TalkTalk Increases UK Mid-Contract Price Hikes to £4

Perhaps inevitably, TalkTalk has today become the latest internet and phone provider to increase the customer cost impact of their existing mid-contract pricing policy, which will be introduced from 16th November 2025. But the price increase itself won’t hit until April 2026.

Just to recap. At the start of 2025 Ofcom began requiring telecoms providers to adopt a new approach to mid-contract price hikes, which did away with the old percentage and inflation-based model – replacing it with one that sets out such price hikes “clearly and up-front, in pounds and pence, when a customer signs up” (here). This made annual price hikes clearer and more transparent, but not necessarily cheaper.

In response, many providers later followed BT’s lead by setting out a new pricing policy that would increase the monthly price that broadband customers pay by a flat £3 extra from March or April each year (this can vary a bit between providers). However, inflation has remained higher than originally anticipated and, partly as a result of that, BT (inc. EE and Plusnet), Virgin Media, Vodafone and O2 have since announced that they will increase their annual hikes (e.g. both BT and Virgin increased it from £3 to £4 on their broadband plans).

Suffice to say it was only a matter of time until TalkTalk, which had previously adopted a £3 increase like some of the other providers, followed and introduced a similar change. The bad news is that they’ve now done this and decided to adopt the same £4 increase as BT and Virgin Media etc.

TalkTalk Price Increase Statement

From 16 November 2025 we’re changing our annual price increases on broadband plans to a flat rate of £4.

Any planned increases will be applied each April, starting in 2026. The £4 price increase applies to new customers and existing customers who take out a new contract after 16 November 2025 and will be clearly shown when customers sign up or renew their contract.

So, if you sign up to a 24-month price of £28 on or after 16 November 2025, it will increase to £32 from April 2026 and then increase to £36 from April 2027, continuing until you end that contract.

For those customers who joined us between 12 August 2024 and 15 November 2025, your broadband plan will continue to be subject to the annual price increase of £3.

For those customers who joined us before 12 August 2024, your broadband plan will continue to be subject to the old system of price increases based on the variable Consumer Price Index (CPI), plus 3.7%. For example, in 2024, the CPI rate that we used to calculate our price change was 4%, so the total increase was 7.7% of the contract price. So, each year we adjust the monthly amount you pay for your broadband and increase your price by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rate of inflation plus 3.7%.

The CPI rate that we use is announced in January each year and we will adjust your bill by this amount, plus an additional 3.7%. This change will only apply to our broadband packages purchased before 12 August 2024. (some exemptions apply).

We adjust the amount our customers pay each year, alongside the rest of the sector – including network builders and broadband providers, to manage increased wholesale and running costs. This also enables us to continue investing in our services to manage the growing demand for faster speeds and enhanced reliability, so we can offer resilient, totally unlimited usage as standard.

Price hikes like this are sadly nothing new in this market. Often there are legitimate reasons for prices to go up, not least because providers are frequently adding all sorts of new services (e.g. 5G SA, FTTP), developing new systems, facing higher charges from suppliers or energy, implementing costly new Ofcom rules or other legislation and dealing with tax hikes from the government etc.

Nevertheless, there is a growing feeling that telecoms providers are becoming increasingly unfair in their pricing practices, and often hitting those who can least afford it the hardest (e.g. somebody on the cheapest package gets hit with the same £4 rise as those on the most expensive plans).

So far, Ofcom’s policy has thus succeeded in making mid-contract price hikes more transparent for consumers, albeit seemingly at the same time forcing them to pay more – often well above the current and forecast levels of CPI inflation. But the government do now seem to be pushing for a change (here).